Mākara is a locality located at the western edge of

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...

, New Zealand, close to the shore of the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea ( Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer ...

. The suburb is named after the Mākara Stream (''mā'' is Māori for white, ''kara'' is a kind of

greywacke Greywacke or graywacke ( German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or li ...

stone). The

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...

regards the nearby

Mākara Beach Mākara Beach, previously spelled Makara Beach, is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand consisting of a small seaside village and its surrounding countryside. The Wellington City Council regards it as a separate suburb to Mākara. Features T ...

as a separate suburb. With winding road access from

Karori Karori is a suburb located at the western edge of the urban area of Wellington, New Zealand, 4 km from the city centre and is one of New Zealand's most populous suburbs, with a population of in History Origins The name ''Karori'' use ...

or Ohariu, Mākara is a rural area with sparse development. It has attracted people who want rural living near Wellington.

History

In the nineteenth century there was a small amount of gold-mining at

Terawhiti Station Terawhiti Station is one of New Zealand's oldest and largest sheep stations, located along the south coast of Wellington. Terawhiti Station has seen a diverse range of land uses over the past 160 years. Originally a cattle station, Terawhiti grew ...

but no large-scale workable deposits were ever found. Tunnels associated with mining activity still exist on the hillside. In 1921 the Makara War Memorial was unveiled, built in memory of local residents who died in World War 1, and another name was added after World War II. There are gun